CEDU colleagues children grace the cover of the new What’s Up Teach magazine of the DBE
A new magazine WHAT’S UP – TEACH? has been created by the Department of Basic Education to inspire the 400 000 teachers of South Africa. As part of her community engagement, Prof Veronica McKay has supported the process of creating this magazine by writing some of the articles and assisting with the conceptualisation of the first edition. She says that the magazine is “jam-packed with relevant information for teachers and at the same time it’s an enjoyable read”. She also makes the point that producing the magazine does not involve any extra costs for the DBE since the articles are written in-house or are submitted by academics free of charge as part of their community engagement activities.
Teachers do not have to pay for the magazine, which is being dropped off at teacher centres and distributed to approximately 26 000 schools across the country. The first edition of WHAT’S UP – TEACH? deals with a wide variety of topics, such as:
- The National Reading Strategy
- Organisational tips for teachers
- Understanding the importance of the Annual National Assessments and what they aim to do
- Preventing the transmission of diseases in school
- Bullying and how to deal with it
- Information about the new Rainbow workbooks that have been distributed to all public schools
- An inspirational checklist to enthuse teachers and get their learners smiling
- Managing absenteeism
- Agony Aunt letters and replies
Unisa’s education students will benefit from reading the magazine as it deals with current educational issues and offers guidance and assistance to both would-be and practising teachers.
Apart from Prof McKay’s involvement, the Unisa College of Education has contributed in other ways too: our own Mapethla Machaba and children of the College of Education grace the front cover of the magazine and feature in the graphics that support various articles. Teachers and students should look out for the magazine, which will be produced quarterly.
